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Page 46
To sum up, we may say, therefore, that up to the sixteenth
century, all music was composed of the slender material of
thirds, sixths, fifths, and octaves, fourths being permitted
only _between_ the voices; consecutive successions of fourths,
however, were permitted, a license not allowed in the use of
fifths or octaves. This leads us directly to a consideration
of the laws of counterpoint and fugue, laws that have remained
practically unchanged up to the present, with the one difference
that, instead of being restricted to the meagre material of
the so-called consonants, the growing use of what were once
called dissonant chords, such as the dominant seventh, ninth,
diminished seventh, and latterly the so-called altered chords,
has brought new riches to the art.
Instead of going at once into a consideration of the laws
of counterpoint, it will be well to take up the development
of the instrumental resources of the time. There were three
distinct types of music: the ecclesiastical type (which of
course predominated) found its expression in melodies sung
by church choirs, four or more melodies being sometimes sung
simultaneously, in accordance with certain fixed rules,
as I have already explained. These melodies or chants
were often accompanied by the organ, of which we will speak
later. The second type was purely instrumental, and served as
an accompaniment for the dance, or consisted of _fanfares_
(ceremonial horn signals), or hunting signals. The third
type was that of the so-called _trouv�res_ or _troubadours_,
with their _jongleurs_, and the minnesingers, and, later, the
mastersingers. All these "minstrels," as we may call them,
accompanied their singing by some instrument, generally one
of the lute type or the psaltery.
[09] There is much question as to Hucbald's organum. That
actually these dissonances were used even up to 1500 is
proved by Franco Gafurius of Milan, who mentions a Litany
for the Dead (_De Profundis_) much used at that time:
[G: {f' g'} {f' g'} {g' a'} {g' a'} {g' c''} {e' a'} {f' g'}]
[W: De profundis, etc.]
[10] Counterpoint is first mentioned by Muris (1300).
[11] Only principal (tenor or cantus firmus) was sung to words.
X
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS--THEIR HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT
In church music, the organ is perhaps the first instrument to
be considered. In 951, Elfeg, the Bishop of Winchester had
built in his cathedral a great organ which had four hundred
pipes and twenty-six pairs of bellows, to manage which seventy
strong men were necessary. Wolstan, in his life of St. Swithin,
the Benedictine monk, gives an account of the exhausting work
required to keep the bellows in action.
Two performers were necessary to play this organ, just as
nowadays we play four-hand music on the piano. The keys went
down with such difficulty that the players had to use their
elbows or fists on each key; therefore it is easy to see that,
at the most, only four keys could be pressed down at the same
time. On the other hand, each key when pressed down or pushed
back (for in the early organs the keyboard was perpendicular)
gave the wind from the bellows access to ten pipes each, which
were probably tuned in octaves or, possibly, according to the
organum of Hucbald, in fifths or fourths. This particular organ
had two sets of keys (called manuals), one for each player;
there were twenty keys to each manual, and every key caused
ten pipes to sound. The compass of this organ was restricted
to ten notes, repeated at the distance of an octave, and,
there being four hundred pipes, forty pipes were available for
each note. On each key was inscribed the name of the note. As
may be imagined, the tone of this instrument was such that it
could be heard at a great distance.
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